


Project: Exodus

by CrystallineBlue



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Xenoblade Chronicles X, Amnesia, Angst, Bonding, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Hunk/Shay, M/M, Mecha, No original Xenoblade X characters, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Romance, Team Voltron bonding - Freeform, Xenoblade Chronicles Spoilers, based on the original plot of Xenoblade X, non-binary Pidge, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 00:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9631526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrystallineBlue/pseuds/CrystallineBlue
Summary: The first thing he remembered was the constant low padding of raindrops against the roof of the escape-pod.Someone had reactivated the system and woken him from his cryo-sleep. His head began to pound as he slowly tried opening his eyes and getting rid of his blurry vision. Disorientation came crashing down on him and he felt himself learning to breathe properly again. It took a few seconds and his panic vanished, he was alive, breathing and nothing hurt – yet.-------AU based on the original plot of Xenoblade Chronicles X. Having played the game is NOT neccessary to read this! Contains spoilers of the original plot, though. No Voltron spoilers.





	

**Author's Note:**

> TW: panic attack!   
> The panic will be between borders, so you can skip it, if you want!
> 
> Thanks for stopping by to read this! 
> 
> For everyone who is new to the Xenoblade X world and likes to listen to music while reading I can recommend this song for chapter 1: 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvuuSuIR0XY
> 
> I will also add some screenshots of the world and the characters outfits (if neccessary) in the end notes!

The first thing he remembered was the constant low padding of raindrops against the roof of the escape-pod.

Someone had reactivated the system and woken him from his cryo-sleep. His head began to pound as he slowly tried opening his eyes and getting rid of his blurry vision. Disorientation came crashing down on him and he felt himself learning to breathe properly again. It took a few seconds and his panic vanished, he was alive, breathing and nothing hurt – yet.  

In the small room he was in he could barely see anything, just a little dusty window which he couldn’t quite look through. The metal surfaces surrounding him were slightly illuminated by pale blue lights and a little red one, blinking in a soothing rhythm, just like his own heartbeat.

How long had he been asleep anyways? That, he didn’t remember. After thinking about that for a while, pushing back and forth inside his memories, trying to get his gears to run properly, he didn’t remember anything.

Cryogenic sleep wasn’t like sleeping at all - you didn’t dream, didn’t feel. And you’d still be terribly tired after waking up. He realized that while walking out of the small space of the pod, knees wobbly and mind still clouded. It was dark outside and with the rain it was hard to perceive the person standing in front of the pod, even though that figure was slightly illuminated from the mechanic blue lights of the inside. It hurt and his eyes took a long while to adjust to the new lighting conditions. A groan left his still-sore throat, before stumbling, as he tried to carefully step out of the pod. Every part of his body felt terribly wrong and out of place, and he couldn’t locate and coordinate all his limbs yet. His legs didn’t even feel like they were his own. Just to be sure, he leaned his head forward to check on his legs – yup, still there. Two legs and they seemed to be working.

  
“No pressure there, just take it slow.” A smooth, masculine voice, belonging to a man in heavy military gear. A shock of wet white strands pushed back against the rest of his otherwise short black hair, strict features softened by a warm smile.

“You must’ve been asleep for quite some time, so don’t push yourself. Think you can walk?”

A few careful steps forward and he finally nodded, not trusting his voice after that weird, raspy sound he had just made. “Fine – then let’s get out of here.” The man turned and started walking at a slow pace, with himself following on wobbly legs, almost falling every other step, but keeping up quite okay.

The man always noticed when his new companion was falling behind, but it didn’t take long for his legs to readjust to the movements, letting him keep up easier and faster. By now he was finally entirely sure those legs he was carried on were his own.  

“You can call me Shiro, by the way. We’ll have some walking ahead of us until we will reach the city – might as well get to know each other.”, he offered another comforting smile, the rain still streaming down on both of them, soaking their bodies to the very bone. Yet, Shiro didn’t seem to be in haste.

“Do you remember anything from before you were put into cryo-sleep?...  No? Not even your name?”

He felt his heart skip a beat as he realized that he, in fact, did not remember his own name. It took him a while to search his brain for the information as they kept walking through a grassy, yet canyon-like area. Nothing about this place seemed familiar to him and neither did the man, who had found him here. His head was empty, still clouded from the long time not being awake – but not being truly asleep either. Confusion slowly crept its way into his mind and he felt his head aching again, panic slowly rising, pulling at his guts, as he desperately tried to focus on remembering his name. Why was he here, in an almost broken cryo-pod in the middle of nowhere, without any recollection of who he was or where he came from?

* * *

 

This wasn’t good. At least remembering his own name shouldn’t usually be that much of a deal, right? … right? The clenching sensation of his panic creeping up his very body came once again and he suddenly stood still, eyes fixated on the wet ground before him, all while he forgot to breathe again, his breath turning into frantic wheezing. His eyes teared up and he felt his knees give in, making him fall onto the ground, hard. He was numb to actually take note on the impact and that it must have hurt somehow, still trying to catch his breath again.

His vision slowly began to turn black and he started seeing little dots in front of him, like white, flashing firework slowly taking his eyesight. “Fuck,” he managed to pant before he noticed being shaken by Shiro. His eyes shot up and the fireworks slowly began to fade, leaving his sight a little clearer, despite the tunnel vision on the worried face that screamed at him.

“…ou okay?!”

He was shaken once more.

“Hey, can you hear me?”

And again. He started breathing, but it was still way to fast to be called healthy or calm. He managed to nod, trying to swallow his panic down. Of course, this didn’t work. He looked Shiro in the eyes, panic mirroring in his own, searching for help in his face.

“You got this, buddy. Take it slow, okay, I am here and you will be fine!”

The ringing in his ears stopped by then, he didn’t even notice it was there until the last bit of it faded away. He could hear Shiro clearly now.

“Take a deep breath in… and out…”

He followed his instructions.

“In… out… very well… good.”

* * *

 

After a few more minutes of him catching his breath again and his panic fading, leaving him with a slight headache, he finally felt calm again and could move on with Shiro. “… ’m fine… thanks.”

The taller man helped him up and they began walking again, a little slower than before, just so he could take it slow and not end up in another panic attack. It _was_ a lot to process, so who could blame him for having a major panic attack in the middle of god-knows-where, with no information about himself, not even a name. He sighed deeply, his breath still quaking a little.

Time passed while they moved on for a still unknown location, whatever ‘the city’ was – he didn’t remember either, but he would find out eventually, as long as he followed the man who had just helped him out of a panic attack.

But as the night slowly faded and the sky cleared above their heads, so did his mind. Shiro hadn’t repeated his question again, although he was probably still waiting for the answer. Suddenly it came over him in a flash, as if it had never been gone, as if he always had known who he was from the beginning. He couldn’t help but feel his lips curl a little, as he let his name wash over him again and again.

“Lance.”, he said finally, the words still feeling a little weird on his tongue, “My name’s Lance.”

* * *

 

Only a few hours had passed since Shiro had found him out in the canyons of Primordia - that’s what they called the area surrounding the city.

With its vast green fields, the far stretched blue lakes and the high-peaked mountains, that, at the same time didn’t really look like mountains on earth, instead some smaller platforms were floating around spikey, thin bridges, resting on top of stone pillars. Primordia quite resembled what Lance faintly remembered Earth to be like. At least if it weren’t for the gigantic plateaus flying up in the azure sky filled with endless stars and five full moons, despite the shining sun. Or the immense amount of hostile indigents roaming the fields. Those creatures, not that he had seen many of them yet, were so unlike any species he knew from their home-planet, except maybe long distinct mammals, but he couldn’t help the fascination that slowly blossomed in his chest.

But this… this wasn’t Earth.

At first, he had only heard from Shiro. This planet was not the one, he had been born on. This was different. His new guide had called the planet ‘Mira’ – whatever stupid name for a planet that was.

The sun fully rose just when they left the canyon to reward them with what Lance decided to be the best view in his entire life. The sun rising behind the high plateaus had chased away the fog and revealed the breathtaking scenery of a high path along a cliff, a pale beach and the crystal-clear, dark blue ocean deep down beneath them. Flying fish in size of whales, with various bioluminescent glowing fins danced in the sky above their heads, singing in high voices as if to welcome him to their world.

Lance couldn’t help but stare for a moment, before his eyes were drawn into the distance, where a spaceship lay stranded at the end of a wide, sloped path that trailed down the cliffside and across the fields. The ship seemed massive, even so far away from them.

Shiro led him all the way through this foreign and unfriendly territory, back to what he had earlier called ‘ _the city’_. In reality it had proven to be a part of a huge spaceship, stranded in the center of Primordia, a continent on an unknown planet so far away from their own solar system, that no one had ever seen it even on long-distance scans.

The whole complex of the spaceship was round from the outside, shielded by walls several dozen stories high and equally thick. They entered the ship through one of the main gates and once they had passed the walls, an entire city was laid out in front of Lance’s eyes.

He didn’t remember that either, didn’t remember ever setting foot on this ship or ever meeting one of the people they saw, as they made their way down the many stairs from the high entrance into the streets.

 

“This is the industrial district.”, Shiro started to explain, while he led the way along the streets with buildings that all looked the same, shades of silver, with bold colorful numbers and letters on them.

“Everything we need to survive on this planet is made here. It’s also where we test new inventions, weapons or-…“

The black-haired man paused as something _very big_ and _very fast_ cut through the air just a few meters away from them, so close to their heads, that Lance instinctively ducked out of the way. The machine crashed into the ground down the street, disappearing in a massive cloud of dark grey smoke.

It didn’t take long for a small crowd to gather around the area of the crash-landing, Lance and Shiro amongst them. For a brief moment Lance could definitely see a worried expression on Shiro’s face, yet he acted like this wasn’t the first time he got almost hit by a huge flying object that crashed down in the middle of a city.

“Out of the way!”

Hastily, Lance turned around almost to be hit by an off-road vehicle this time, had the driver not stopped in the very last moment. Behind the wheel sat a man with dark hair and tanned skin, a yellow headband tied around his forehead and a shaky, but friendly smile on his lips. He raised his hand shortly in apology, before he exited the car along with another, much shorter person, who immediately sprinted into the crashed machine’s direction. The smoke was already clearing and revealed a robot of humanoid shape, that was about four times the size of an actual person.

The small one, almost completely dressed in green, stood before the mech and waved a hand.

“You still alive in there?!”, they shouted towards the robot.

No one responded.

Lance’s eyes darted back to Shiro in question. His eyebrows were drawn together in worry and now he was definitely no longer able to conceal it. While he himself still tried to process what had happened here and why he had nearly been killed _twice_ within less than a minute, they moved closer. 

Lance squinted a little and made out movements in the remaining smoke, as the hatch of the cockpit opened and revealed even more smoke, before a person climbed out of it. Halfway out the cockpit the pilot took off his helmet and threw it to the ground with a frustrated groan. Shiro, next to him, let out a breath of relieve, tension visibly dropping off his shoulders, as the pilot jumped down from the top of his crashed mech. Shiro made his way to the green-clad engineer, gesturing Lance to follow.

“Pidge, why can’t you just try to _not_ get into trouble for _once,_ while I’m not around?”, Shiro sighed deeply, crossing his arms in front of his chest and locking eyes with the small person in front of him. Pidge smiled vaguely, readjusting the glasses on their nose before they started scrolling over a blue screen hovering above a small device in their left hand.

“According to my calculations this shouldn’t have happened.”, they said, still searching through the data on the com-device. They knit their brows together, frustration slowly setting in, when they couldn’t make out the reason for the crash, “I mean, this is not the first time we did this, but I never seem to catch the problem.”

“So, this is my fault, then?”

Lance turned his attention to the pilot. He had just stepped close enough to no longer be obscured by smoke anymore. His flight armor was colored in different shades of grey and dark red, making a stark contrast opposing to his pale skin. His dark hair almost fell into his eyes and was pulled back into a messy, short ponytail in the back of his neck. Deep purple eyes lit up, as they looked from Pidge to Shiro and turned into a questioning, curious look when they finally rested on Lance. He couldn’t help but feel uneasy beneath the piercing gaze that seemed to bore right into his skull. His eyes darted away, trying to focus on the engineer instead.  

“I didn’t say that.”, Pidge tapped on their com-device again, scanning over the data when they finally frowned. “I have no idea yet… but I’ll figure this out before we give it a new try. Promise.”

One last look at the com-device’s screen, before Pidge’s attention moved onto the next interesting target. Lance could feel the intense look of their amber eyes scanning him just like the pilot had done before, just like he was a new file in their com that ached to be investigated. Just from the way they looked at him, he could already tell they were far beyond whatever age they might’ve seemed. Like – 17, maybe?

 

“I guess your trip was successful?”, Pidge directed to Shiro, before they held out a hand to the newcomer, “I’m Pidge. I’m an all-round engineer for BLADE. Don’t ever judge me by my height. Or my age. Or gender.” Lance shook their hand, before the engineer pointed at the pilot beside them, “This is Keith. He may not look like that right now, but he’s our best Skell pilot aaaaand-“

“And he’s probably the only one who’s reckless enough to let himself get blown up in your experiments all the time.”, Shiro raised an eyebrow accusingly, interrupting the introduction. He didn’t seem too pleased about whatever _experiment_ had been going on here with the Skell, but could he be blamed? That thing had crashed pretty hard from the look of the damage on the machine and the surrounding area and the whole incident could have had a very bad ending… at least that was, what he assumed from the serious tone in Shiro’s voice.

“It’s not like I ever got hurt or anything.” Keith shrugged. “You worry too much.”

“No, I worry exactly the right amount.”

“Why don’t we just drop the topic for now and get back to the good stuff.”, another interruption, this time from Pidge, “Our new friend here”, they gestured to Lance, “needs the ‘grand tour’ around the city and a place to stay. And by his looks I’m pretty sure he’ll want to join BLADE as well, right?”

Four pairs of expectant eyes fixated Lance within an instant.

 “Uh… sure, but – what is a… ‘BLADE’?”

 

* * *

 

X82-294 – Lifehold Core Searchparty

_New Los Angeles is counting on your support!_

 

“That’s basically all we have to do for the registration for now.” Pidge was standing in front of a big console, the screen illuminated by light in several shades of blue. They had helped Lance with the whole registration progress so far and explained all the important things he needed to know beforehand. Well, at least most of them.

“Welcome to BLADE!”

B.L.A.D.E. – the Builders of a Legacy after the Destruction of Earth. A private military organization, that was founded to support the temporary government of NLA. That’s as much as he remembered of the long and complicated explanation about the organization and its purpose. There were still a lot of questions left in his head longing desperately for an answer, but he needed time to process all the new things he had heard and seen in less than a day. Exhaustion from the time in stasis and the long walk to the city were slowly taking their toll on him, his headache fairly present again, and by now he certainly didn’t mind some rest and a good meal.

After the incident in the industrial district, the group had taken Lance to the BLADE quarters for a more official welcome and to talk him into becoming one of them.

That part had been an easy task.

 

Lance couldn’t remember, what exactly he had done before he’d been put into stasis or who he had been before… and coming into this town without any plans, he felt a little lost.

Shiro had told him a few things on their way, but not why and how long Lance had been in the pod at all or why they were on this planet in the first place. The only thing he knew for sure was the ship was forced to crash-land in the middle of nowhere and he still wondered about the reason.

Why were they here? Why had they traveled so far away from earth? Why had a ship, big enough to contain an entire city, crashed down on a planet without any kind of civilization?

And most important - which role did he play in the whole story?

Shiro and the others didn’t seem like they had known Lance before today, so he had no clue how to find out anything about himself or the reason why he was here. His only chances were to find someone on this ship, who had known him before all this or to somehow get his memories back.

Until then he might as well help out these people, who belonged to the team of the man that had found him out in the canyon. At least that point didn’t sound so bad and he didn’t have any other place to go to for now.

For a moment Lance kept staring at the screen that still displayed his new BLADE-ID, before his attention focused back on Pidge.

“The whole organization is divided into eight Divisions that each specialize in different fields, so we can best coordinate the BLADE members. We can go over the details later, you don’t have to choose yet. Maybe try going on a few test missions with one or the other team, before you decide on a Division, that suits you best.”

Pidge turned away from the console and beamed at Lance. He returned a confident smile, before they headed back to the main room of the BLADE Barracks. A huge, open and well-equipped kitchen took up a big part of the room, along with a comfortable seating and dining area, where the rest of the group had gathered, while Pidge and Lance had dealt with the formalities.

Hunk was standing behind the kitchen isle and prepared what seemed to be lunch and smelled delicious. Inevitably Lance wondered how long he hadn’t eaten or how long he had been in stasis for that matter.

Pidge hopped onto the kitchen counter and watched while Hunk started chopping some unknown vegetable that reminded him of purple tomatoes. After a moment of hesitation he decided to sit down on the armrest of the big u-shaped couch, next to Shiro. Keith, who had changed out of his flight-gear, was sitting across of them, arms crossed in front of his chest.

 

“So…”, Lance started, a little unsure how to get off with this place and people he was entirely new to, “Shiro told me, the ship crashed down here on – what was the planet’s name again? Mira? – How long have you been here? It seems I missed quite a lot…”

“It’s been only 2 months since. We got off with a rocky start, but we’re getting there. You’ve seen the city out there – we got most of the important facilities up and running by now, so we can focus on finding the crew-members we lost during the crash. A lot of pods are stranded out in the open, just like you were, but only very few are still intact. You’re lucky I found you in time.”

Shiro pulled out the same device that Pidge had used earlier to scan the Skell after the crash, and called up a hovering, half-transparent screen, that showed a map. He gestured Lance to take a closer look, before he started explaining, “We managed to set up the FrontierNav System, to help the teams navigate on this planet. And we established BLADE and the Divisions to organize our resources and manpower.”. Lance could make out 5 different continents on the map, all divided by a hexagonal pattern. Some of the hexagons showed landscapes from bird-view but most of them were still empty and dark.

“We’ve still got a long way to go, until we’ll have all of those explored.”  
He trailed his index-finger over the screen, “Exploration… that’s basically mine and Keith’s job. Or rather, the job of our Division. We are in charge of installing probes all over the planet and filling this empty map. Maybe we can take you on one of our trips. Mira isn’t too bad for a planet to be stranded on.”

Lance followed the movements of Shiro’s finger along the map. He had to admit it, he was getting curious. A strange planet, far away from earth and his home, a world full of new species and sights, just waiting to be explored. Mystery and adventure right at their very doorstep.

Just what was the angle about this whole story?

“Sounds great but… just one thing. You said we were stranded here for now. So, when do you think will we be able to leave again? When are we going back to earth?”

At those words Lance looked around the kitchen to meet four faces, painted with the same bitter, deep sorrow. All, except for one.

Hunk slowed down his movements, until he stopped and fixed his vegetables with a saddened gaze. Pidge bit down their bottom-lip and helplessly looked from one of their friends to the other. Shiro took a deep breath and sighed, crossing his slightly shaking arms before his chest.

Lance looked between them in confusion, searching their faces for an explanation to this unexpected reaction.

Did he say something wrong?

A thousand questions whirled around in his head at once and he started to slowly comprehend, how much he might have missed within those 2 months of stasis. But much more he wanted to know, what had happened before that. What he had forgotten in his amnesia. His eyes trailed along the room from one to the next, before they landed on the only one who had barely said anything so far.

Keith was the only one, whose expression didn’t falter. He was also the one, who spoke up first.

“We’re not going anywhere.”, his voice was cold, void of any of the emotions, that danced on the faces of his comrades, “There is nothing left to return to, Lance.”

He felt his smile turn upside down, more and more questions swirling around in his thoughts and once again, he looked around, turned to Shiro, turned to the others on the opposite site of the kitchen, before facing Keith again. What did that all mean, there was nothing to return to? Why? He wanted to hear the answer, and at the same time, he didn’t. He felt it in his throat already, bitter on the tip of his own tongue. Keith confirmed his thoughts.

“Earth has been destroyed two years ago.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This fic was written by me and extended by my s/o Kuro.  
> If you have anything to say, or questions about the world, feel free to write us @ Twitter or Tumblr.
> 
> kokuroarts.tumblr.com  
> @ crystallineblue (my Twitter)  
> @ _kokuro_ (Kuro's Twitter)
> 
> Primordia:  
> http://images.nintendolife.com/news/2015/11/preview_getting_lost_in_the_world_of_xenoblade_chronicles_x/attachment/1/885x.jpg
> 
> NLA:  
> http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/xenoblade/images/f/fe/New_Los_Angeles.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20141116020936
> 
> BLADE Barracks (kitchen):  
> https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y6GJURhvdUI/maxresdefault.jpg


End file.
